Downtown San Antonio Branding

History meets its future.

Over the past decade, the city of San Antonio has fallen victim to its own charm. Valued tourism threatens to rip the heart of downtown away from its own citizens. Yet within recent years, a robust tech community, culinary innovations and vibrant neighborhoods have emerged on the scene, empowering the city to be listed as a city on the rise, particularly among young adults.

The people are taking it back...and to rally and unify their efforts, a new identity was needed.

Working with Centro San Antonio, we jumped in to help craft a downtown story that was ripe to be told. Rooted in a rich history with innovative plans for the future ahead, San Antonio offers the ultimate “retropolitan” experience — a vibrant, progressive urban center with a small town, community feel.

Being the 7th largest city in the U.S., that’s a major undertaking and includes a wide variety of stakeholder and influencer input. We worked with city partners to create a unifying message, identity and marketing strategy that came from the heart of locals and thousands of tourists that make their way through the city each year.

Reflecting the city’s rich cultural roots and history alongside its modern and progressive future, the new mark pays homage to the famous quatrefoil that can be found throughout the cities history and culture, while bringing with it a new sense of innovation and vision.

The mark visually represents the interconnected nature of the neighborhoods, people, cultures and lifestyles that make up the fabric of our downtown, while subtly depicting the upward progress that San Antonio has always had within its DNA.

A socially-connected microsite helps drive conversation among locals and ensures the vibrant story of San Antonio is being told at a whole new level.

To represent the diversity of neighborhoods, we created a family of micro-brands that embody the many districts that form the larger community. Relying on aesthetics, colors and tone of the city brand, each mark is uniquely identifiable within a larger brand family.

Throughout the entire branding process, we partnered with the local San Antonio community to leverage their vision for the brand, creating opportunities to bring their own voice and style to the table.

For locals, the new brand is a rally cry around their collective city and story. And after the brand launch party, we can’t exactly disagree.